From This Point Onwards
by Thaddeus MacChuzzlewit
Summary: Lucy feels overheated, fever-hot with the warm blood soaked through her jeans and her sweater. "He was a loose end." She looks up at Cahill, and suddenly she understands. This is where it changes. This is the Lucy that writes the journal.


_Spoilers for Episode 6! This speculative piece of melodrama is probably not what will happen next on Timeless. But really, what do you think will push Lucy to work with Flynn in the potential future? Maybe this?_

* * *

 **From This Point Onwards**

" _I don't trust either of you."_

Considering what's going on around them, it's sort of a silly thing to focus on. But that's all that Lucy can think about. They haven't had enough time. They haven't had enough time to win Wyatt back. And it matters. It matters because he doesn't give out his trust or his friendship easily, but he gave it to them. Wyatt, with his disregard for history, his tunnel vision, dry humour and sudden bouts of empathy, he is the only one who wasn't holding anything back. He wasn't touched by Rittenhouse… until he was.

The confrontation takes places at Mason Industries, the building empty but for the three time-travellers, and the face of Rittenhouse with his armed men circling them.

"You think you're not a part of this, but you are, Master Sergeant Logan. You were married into it."

Wyatt shakes his head, confused, and unready to hear whatever is coming next.

"Jessica promised you to us, at the same time you were saying your vows. Your beloved wife, never a secret between the two of you, and yet she never told you about her birthright," says Benjamin Cahill, a smile on his face, and Lucy is astounded by his cruelty, because she's done things she's ashamed of, but she's never reached out to purposefully torture a man like this, and yet half of her genetics are his. Part of her is from him.

"Jessica was…"

"Rittenhouse? Yes."

Beside her, Rufus looks more terrified each time Cahill says that name out loud, because it seems like they've reached some turning point if the lid is off, and everyone is suddenly speaking freely.

"She wasn't an active member; I will give you that. Never had been. Her parents never really involved her as much as they should have, and consequently, I don't think she fully understood what she tried to do to."

"What did she do?" Wyatt's eyes are wide and pink around the edges, like he's one step away from crying.

"She tried to leave us. Told us you two were going to start a family, and she didn't want her child born into our ranks. That was impossible, of course, so we had to kill her."

Lucy looks over at Wyatt, who actually seems to have stopped breathing.

"You've always blamed yourself for her death, Logan, but if she hadn't been on her own, we would have killed both of you together."

Wyatt has his gun out and the safety off in one movement, and Cahill just laughs.

"Are you really going to shoot me? You could, but where will that leave your team-mates? Lucy is one of us; she can't leave. Rufus has built his whole life on our dime, even if he didn't realise it. You're the only one with no ties. No living ones, at least."

Lucy swallows. Cahill is dangerous, and even if he hasn't raised his gun, his men have their weapons primed.

"So what's it going to be, Logan? Are you going to take revenge for Jessica, or are you going to keep doing your job, protecting your teammates?"

Wyatt glances at Lucy. He looks torn apart. She remembers his face at the Alamo and wants to reach out to him again. She wants to tell him to shoot. Stop the man who killed his wife. End this and walk away. He doesn't owe her or Rufus anything, and maybe he can get out, maybe he can have a life after this with people he trusts, maybe somebody new to love.

Wyatt lowers his gun and takes one step back, back towards Rufus and Lucy, back towards his two teammates, the only people he has left, even if he doesn't fully trust them.

Cahill shoots him.

Lucy is crying and Rufus is screaming, and once again she's covered in blood. Wyatt drops to the floor, and she scrambles to stop his head from bouncing off the concrete. He doesn't say anything, just coughs once, and stops blinking, his blue eyes fixed on something beyond her sight. Lucy shakes him, but he doesn't respond.

"Why? Why!" Rufus screams at Cahill. "He lowered his gun. He was going to give you what you wanted!"

Wyatt still hasn't blinked. He won't respond to her. Lucy feels overheated, fever-hot with the warm blood soaked through her jeans and her sweater.

"He was a loose end."

She looks up at Cahill who still has that half-smile on his face, the one that never leaves, and suddenly she understands.

This is where it changes.

This is the Lucy that writes the journal.

* * *

Somebody takes Wyatt from her.

He should be fighting them, should be winning, even if they outnumber him and he's not that much taller than she is. Instead his arms drag loose, his head flops to the side, and his eyes are still open. He won't blink.

Lucy keeps trying to make eye contact. She wants him to look back. She wants to say that she's sorry, that they both are, that she wants to be friends again. She wants Wyatt to buckle her into the time machine, to help her deal with all this blood, to say something unexpectedly vulnerable, or dryly sarcastic, or, or anything, she wants Wyatt to say _anything at all_.

They take him away.

It's the last time she sees him.

* * *

It takes her years.

Lucy has to pretend that she's terrified of Rittenhouse, which seems silly, because what does she have left to lose? But she works for them anyways. She travels back and forth in time, 'trying to stop Flynn', and learning as much as she possibly can about the secret organization. She finds every weak spot and every important point in history and she writes it all in that journal.

At some point, she can't keep the cracks from showing anymore, and they let her go from the team, as if that will stop her from digging up more of their secrets. Her mother is worried for her. Her ex-fiancé tries get her professional help, which is frankly hilarious. Nobody thinks her hysterical laughter is healthy, not even Lucy herself, but there is no-one in the world that can fix her brand of crazy. There is no future where she recovers from this. Only the past will help.

Rufus is her inside man, keeping his family safe, but risking it all, one last time, to help her steal the time machine for a final trip. A trip back in time to hand over a journal to a young boy who doesn't know that his still-unborn enemy is risking everything to trust in him.

* * *

"You think you're not a part of this, but you are, Master Sergeant Logan. You were married into it. Jessica promised you to us, at the same time you were saying your vows. Your beloved wife, never a secret between the two of you, and yet she never told you about her birthright."

"Jessica was…"

"Rittenhouse? Yes."

It's a shock, and Lucy has her eyes pinned on Wyatt, just like he has his on Cahill.

"She wasn't an active member; I will give you that. Never had been. Her parents never really involved her as much as they should have, and consequently, I don't think she fully understood what she tried to do."

"What did she do?"

Lucy wants so badly to drag Wyatt from the room, and protect him from whatever is coming next. Rufus looks like he wants to hit Cahill.

"She tried to leave us. Told us you two were going to start a family, and she didn't want her child born into our ranks. That was impossible, of course, so we had to kill her. You've always blamed yourself for her death, Logan, but if she hadn't been on her own, we would have killed both of you together."

Wyatt pulls his gun on the older man, who just laughs at him.

"Are you really going to shoot me? You could, but where will that leave your team-mates? Lucy is one of us; she can't leave. Rufus has built his whole life on our dime, even if he didn't realise it. You're the only one with no ties. No living ones, at least. So what's it going to be, Logan? Are you going to take revenge for Jessica, or are you going to keep doing your job, protecting your teammates?"

Wyatt glances at Lucy.

He lowers his gun and takes one step back.

Cahill shoots him.

Lucy jerks forward, trying to halt Wyatt's decent before she even realises why he's falling. Rufus is screaming at Cahill, angry and shocked at the same time. Her knees hit the ground hard, and Wyatt's wildly roaming eyes lock on her face. He lets out a wheezing gasp of air, hands clawing at his chest.

Cahill frowns at them, and takes two steps forward. "Is he still alive?"

He raises his gun again, and Lucy looks around frantically for Wyatt's weapon.

Instead, she sees something she never noticed before. On the underside of the closest workstation, just a few feet away, there is a bright pink sign. The tape holding it in place is new, but the paper is curled with age. It says, _'Shoot him, Lucy.'_ It's her handwriting. Beside it is a gun, duct-taped in place, the safety already off.

"Wait!" She begs her father.

He plugs one more bullet into Wyatt's chest, and she feels the impact through her thighs.

Cahill frowns at the lack of blood, and then raises the level of the gun to centre on his victim's head.

Lucy closes her eyes and fires twice.

Dropping the gun, she tucks herself over Wyatt's body, hiding her face as a door slams open and more bullets start flying. Wyatt is making weird noises, like a cat trying to hack up a hairball, like a vacuum cleaner turned in on itself. The guns keep firing, and Wyatt starts coughing and trying to sit up. Lucy doesn't move, and he can't either.

"Lucy? Wyatt?"

It's Rufus.

"Are you guys alive?"

"Lucy?"

A different voice.

She slowly uncurls, looking up to see Flynn standing over her, an automatic weapon in one hand. Rufus is looking at him with concern, fear, and gratefulness all rolled together in one.

"Are you hurt? I followed your instructions to the letter."

"My instructions?"

Flynn drops an envelope into her lap, and then kneels down to help Wyatt sit up. He swiftly unbuttons the younger man's shirt and starts unstrapping the dark vest he's wearing underneath. Wyatt is coughing in earnest now.

"Is that a bullet-proof vest?" Rufus asks. "Since when do you wear that?"

"I left it for him," Flynn says, and Wyatt's eyes widen as if the origin of the gift was news to him. "It's all in the journal Lucy gave me. There was a whole section at the back with instructions for this week. A part I wasn't allowed to read until now."

Lucy unfolds the papers from the envelope. She looks at the words all scrawled out in a familiar hand.

"Are we not enemies anymore?" Wyatt gasps out.

Flynn calls to one of his men, who tosses him a bottle of water. Wyatt drinks from it, eying Flynn like he's been looking at him with the wrong prescriptions of glasses all this time.

Flynn just assists him in completely shedding the vest. Wyatt's chest is bright red in three different spots, the first two directly over his heart.

"Yikes," is all he says.

Lucy looks over, and can't tear her eyes away from the injury.

"We're leaving."

"What?" Rufus asks.

Lucy realises she was the one who spoke, and she stands up. "We're stealing the time machine, and we're leaving with Flynn."

"We are?"

She nods at Wyatt. "I wrote myself a letter. I even included pictures from… what would have been this crime scene. We're getting a chance here to change the future, to create a future without Rittenhouse."

Flynn smiles, and she points a finger at him. "We're not going to do it by destroying America. We've got brains, we've got brawn, we have knowledge of the future and the past. We have two time machines, and Rittenhouse doesn't have any, so we're going to travel through time and cut them out of history like surgeons with a scalpel."

Rufus chews at his lip, but he nods slowly.

Flynn looks a little put-out, but he still gets to his feet, offering Wyatt a hand up as well.

There's a pause while Wyatt wraps his arms around his chest, taking a couple deep breaths to deal with the pain. Then he just looks at Lucy, thinking, blinking.

"All right, Lucy." Wyatt's eyes lighten, and that tiny hint of a smile twists at the corner of his mouth. "I trust you. We'll follow your lead."


End file.
